Lecavilier leads Flyers past Rangers

PHILADELPHIA — Scott Hartnell spent some time in the aftermath of a lousy loss to the San Jose Sharks Thursday night chastising his team and himself for being a bit too eager and undisciplined in their first game after the Olympic break.

So naturally Hartnell came out Saturday and took two penalties in his first two shifts of the game against the Rangers. Two minor infractions in 37 seconds of patented Hartnell ice time. As it turned out, however, his criminal starting strategy would work brilliantly.

While Hartnell shook his head in the penalty box, his teammates expertly killed off the two early Rangers power plays, then were moved to score the first two early goals of the game, sending the Flyers on their way to a 4-2 victory at Wells Fargo Center.

Funny what a little penalty-killing momentum can do.

“It’s not the way you want to start a game, setting yourselves back by a man,” Flyers goalie Steve Mason said. “But the way we’re able to kill penalties, like we did against an extremely talented power play in the first couple of minutes of the game, it’s a good feeling moving forward and something to build off of confidence-wise.”

That feeling paid dividends in this game and could do so moving forward in what’s setting up to be a memorable season for fans of Flyers-Rangers wars.

After being dominated by the Rangers since early 2011 no matter where their meetings took place, the Flyers (31-24-6, 68 points) earned their second home win over their New York tormentors this season to get back to within a point of the Rangers (33-25-3_69) in the Metropolitan Division standings. If things stay that way over the teams’ final 21 games, they would meet each other in the first round of the playoffs.

“It was a fun game,” Vinny Lecavalier said. “A fast-paced hockey game, great opportunities on both sides. I thought we played solid and proved ourselves.”

If anything, Lecavalier continues to prove he can indeed be a fit at left wing, where coach Craig Berube has determined he belongs next to hot power forwards Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds.

Via a strong assist by Simmonds and a fortunate tip off Rangers defender Anton Stralman’s stick, Lecavalier took the momentum from those Flyers penalty kills and put the first score on the board 7:04 into the game.

After registering all of one goal and a long injury absence over a stretch of 18 games during the late fall holiday season, Lecavalier has put up three goals over his last 10 games. His linemates deserve a lot of the credit for that, of course.

“I think the last few games, actually even before the (Olympic) break, I think we’ve been playing some pretty solid hockey,” Lecavalier said. “The whole team is playing good. I think everybody is in sync, playing good together. It’s fun to play with (Simmonds) and (Schenn); they’re great hockey players. They’re strong and big and they forecheck well.

“We just have to keep it going.”

Simmonds kept his productive run of points in four straight games going with the assist on Lecavalier’s goal, but he also registered a power play goal at 13:23 of the second that not only helped reverse what had been a dominant stretch by the Rangers, but would also go down as the game-winning goal. Simmonds has been that kind of difference maker this season.

“He’s proven it, obviously, all year long,” Lecavalier said.

After Lecavalier opened the scoring, defensively strong center Sean Couturier also scored with a rather uncharacteristically stylish move that left elite Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist appearing dazed and confused.

That goal staked the Flyers to a 2-0 lead just more than eight minutes into the game, but as is their nature, the Flyers took that lead and trashed it amid a second-period stretch of defensively dismaying hockey.

Anybody notice that’s happened a lot lately?

“I think it’s just focus; it’s all mental,” Couturier said. “You have to be prepared to battle every shift and in the second we took a couple of shifts off and they came right back at us.”

At least it didn’t get out of hand this time like it did Thursday night in the 7-3 loss to the Sharks.

“We’re a resilient bunch,” Simmonds said.

“We should have never given up that many goals in that game to begin with. I think we talked about things after that. We kind of started from scratch.”

Like other such humiliations this season, the Flyers reversed course in their very next game. Mark them down as 4-0-1 in games immediately following a loss by four goals or more.

They may not be as stingy as they’d like to be, but they are stubborn.

“We have character,” Couturier said. “Guys don’t accept those types of losses. We just wanted to bounce back and show we have character and battle hard the next game.”

Mason, knocked out early in that Sharks loss but brought back later when Ray Emery went down with a lower groin injury in the third period, made it possible for the Flyers to battle back on this day. Despite giving up second-period goals to Chris Kreider and Derick Brassard, Mason stood strong and did well to never allow the Rangers to grab a lead. Luke Schenn then put up an insurance goal with 3:45 left.

In short order, Mason would finish with 33 saves and something to be personally proud of — a win over Lundqvist.

“I wasn’t going out there for Steve Mason vs. Henrik Lundqvist,” Mason said. “I was just trying to help the Flyers beat the Rangers, and that’s what we did.”